After I painted my last bike, I wetsanded with 1000 then 2000, then buffed with a Meguiar's polish and finished with Meguiar's Tech Wax.

The wetsanding and polishing/waxing makes all the difference. I never realized the importance of it until yesterday.

Totally - right when cleaning up after wet-sanding, when the surface was hazy I was reeeeally starting to second guess my decision to do all of that work, but as soon as I hit it with the buffer, it looked awesome.

I've been very busy since the start of the new year, so progress to date has been slow. I have this week off, so I plan to get a lot of work done! I have buffed and polished all the painted panels. Here's the nose cone and hood:

When I started to put everything back together, I realized that I had a problem; anything that was painted black (frame, rollbar, cockpit, etc) looked very bad next to the freshly painted panels. So guess what I'm doing now? I'm doing some repainting in black:

You may notice in the picture above that my engine is missing. I decided that I would replace my clutch this week, so the engine needed to come out. This also gives me an opportunity to clean the engine up a bit. I have no intentions of painting it, because I just don't have time for that. I will just be degreasing it. The transmission has already been cleaned (it was black when I pulled it out):

Tomorrow, I need to get my flywheel machined, so that I can put the transmission back on with the new clutch. After that, I expect that it will take about a day to re-install the engine and wiring, another day to finish up the painting, and another day or two to for everything else (re-install dash, trim, wheels, bleed brakes, fill all fluids etc). Sounds like I can finish it this week, but we will see.....

_________________"The decision to build a car is not one reached through a rational mindset. It is a decision that is made because we have to do it! It makes no sense, but neither does love, children and taxes" -Sam Buchanan

This week's progress was a little slower than expected, but I ended up doing a lot of extra work on the car that I didn't expect. Most of the car is back together now, and this is what the paint looks like:

I hope that I can get the remaining pieces of trim, windshield, dashboard and exhaust back on the car within the next week, so I can wash everything down, and do my final polishing.

_________________"The decision to build a car is not one reached through a rational mindset. It is a decision that is made because we have to do it! It makes no sense, but neither does love, children and taxes" -Sam Buchanan

Almost everything is back together now. I am ready for summer!! I had the car outside today to clean up the garage a but, so I snapped a couple of pictures:

Shinny!

Now what do I do with my spare time??

_________________"The decision to build a car is not one reached through a rational mindset. It is a decision that is made because we have to do it! It makes no sense, but neither does love, children and taxes" -Sam Buchanan

I took a group of kids to an Indycar race, and as part of that I took them to the vintage Indycar tent. The head of that organization immediately got very concerned, since the cars had recently run on the track, and a good number of them had exposed exhaust pipes. Which, of course, got very hot on a 2-mile oval run.

Which brings up a question -- should we take pains to cover the entire exhaust system, not just where it passes the passenger space? I just have this mental image of parking the thing, and having someone back up and burning their legs/feet on my catalytic converter or headers or something?

Which brings up a question -- should we take pains to cover the entire exhaust system, not just where it passes the passenger space? I just have this mental image of parking the thing, and having someone back up and burning their legs/feet on my catalytic converter or headers or something?.

I highly recommend covering the entire exhaust. There are many days I've regretted not covering the whole exhaust. A friend of mine got a burn on her leg while getting out of the car one day (very minor, was gone in a day). With the shape of the exhaust (especially with the Cat's), it makes it very difficult for me to cover mine up, while still making it look pretty. I am usually paranoid when I first go to car shows, because little kids love to get close to the car. If I had the money, my whole exhaust would be covered, and it would be all stainless. Stainless exhaust is so nice, because it cleans up so easily.

_________________"The decision to build a car is not one reached through a rational mindset. It is a decision that is made because we have to do it! It makes no sense, but neither does love, children and taxes" -Sam Buchanan

Call me crazy, but I don't believe it's necessary to cover the entire exhaust. If you attempt to create a nerf world which prevents people from getting hurt through doing something foolish, like touching something they should suspect to be hot for example, where do you draw the line? I've never had children touch the hot exhaust on my motorcycle, but I wouldn't cover it if they did.

Not everyone knows an exhaust is hot or as hot as it is. In HS I nearly burned my hand in half on a tractor exhaust pipe when it stuck and I couldn't get it removed. I was a budding carguy and I still had no idea it got that hot.

And should a child burn themselves badly on your motorcycle exhaust I'm betting that some of the possible legal repercussions, or your conscience would cause you to think seriously about it.

Thanks for letting me know! I had no idea! I feel kinda honored that someone took the time to write about my car.

_________________"The decision to build a car is not one reached through a rational mindset. It is a decision that is made because we have to do it! It makes no sense, but neither does love, children and taxes" -Sam Buchanan

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